AirSpaceMag.com

520 Days in a Can

Three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian walk into a simulation chamber...and don't come out for 17 months.That's pretty much the idea behind Mars 500, which starts tomorrow and aims to be the highest-fidelity simulation of a Mars mission ever conducted—as well as the first to last as ...

Three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian walk into a simulation chamber...and don't come out for 17 months.

That's pretty much the idea behind Mars 500, which starts tomorrow and aims to be the highest-fidelity simulation of a Mars mission ever conducted—as well as the first to last as long as an actual round-trip to the Red Planet. Inside a multi-cylinder chamber on the Moscow campus of the Institute for Medical and Biological Problems, six volunteers will spend 520 days doing the things real Mars astronauts are expected to do: running experiments, growing plants, communicating with Earth (with a true-to-life 20 minute signal delay), exploring the Martian surface (okay, another module), and generally seeing if they can get through without
cracking up or committing homicide.